ALIS VOLAT PROPRIIS: She flies with her own wings!

She is exquisite, she is repulsive. She is the reason for our existence. She is an epitome of Shakti and symbolic of power reincarnation, for she brings out doomsday of human follies and villainy. She is the creator, for she fosters life. She is known for her ferocious avatar, willing to unleash exasperation against violence and all the wrong happening in and around the society.

She is Maa Durga, the only Hindu Goddess as depicted in the Hindu Pantheon, riding a lion or a tiger, symbolizing a fearless female.

Happy Navratri, to all the readers of Afflatus!

May all of us have colorful and joyous festive months ahead! May Maa Kali vanquish all the evil forces of our Patriarchal society and set all her daughters free from the shackles of brutality and savagery. I solemnly pray that, she give strength to all the girls, women, wives and female Corporate, who have been beaten up, assaulted, starved, raped, imprisoned, tortured, and treated disgracefully by the society or even their OWN “beloved ones” wearing‘mask of a Beast’, to raise their voices and condemn the unlawful and culpable acts.

A Woman is undoubtedly, a ‘stronger version of masculine strength’! This is defined by Maa Durga, holding weapons in her eight hands, symbolizing her masculine strength like Indra’s thunderbolt, Shiva’s trident, Yama’s sword and Agni’s sphere.

We just need to let a ‘Women fly with her own wings’, like a fearless crusader. Let her take a leap of faith to escape tyranny and oppression. Let her dream and see her live once. Let us for once, all of us conspire to comfort her. Let us be the confidence-she needs to conquer the world. Let us show her that we still possess humanity, and ablaze her with excitement.

This is really saddening that we celebrate our festivals with such great enthusiasm, and worship deities with pure respect and divinity, but we exceedingly fail, when it comes to respecting our daughters and mothers.

This indeed puts me to question the dogmas of faith, that do we really believe in god and divinity or is it the religion farce that has festooned the glory of India?

The plight of women in India is overtly visible and difficult to hide! The only reason for such a pathetic condition of females is the mindset of the people that she has started realizing herself ‘as a piece of waste’, submissive and non-threatening to the manly world, that she got subjugated and harassed.

A woman is always taught not to take fights, to adjust to her new married life, to respect her husband as a deity and worship him. She is brainwashed to be invisible to her own identity, to her own beliefs, to her own dreams and if she wants to be visible she should be a ‘mirror to her husband’s idiosyncrasy’.

What our society fails at, is educating men, about the importance of women. I personally feel that a woman has immense potential to justify the saying that, “the hands that rock the cradle, rules the world”. But in the true sense, it can be justified only when her ‘wings are not cut’!

Undoubtedly, India is rich in its human resource and boasts no wrong about it. We have examples of emancipation like Indira Gandhi, Naina Lal Kidwai, Chanda Kochhar, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Madhuri Dixit and the list goes on, who have set leading examples for the little dreamers, and who are the reasons why India looks progressive. But this doesn’t mean that they did not have to struggle to overcome the facades of the society.

They fought for their rights and triumphed!

But not all the girls have the same fate as theirs. What could be more traumatizing to a girl to be raped and for her family to stand and see her daughter cry helplessly? There are hundreds of innumerable news flooding the daily journal, of a girl being molested to death. Yet what we find is, that a girl has to put her chin down and stand in desolation, as she herself made an attempt to be molested. The taboo that, it is because the girl wears short clothes, miniskirts, dresses, crop tops and a wide range of fashionable clothing range available for them, provokes men, is just so disgraceful on a men’s part.

Firstly, we live in a liberal world where a woman is free to make decisions as to what to wear; she does not seek your permission. If she is comfortable she will wear it and flaunt it. Secondly, if you argue that a men lives in a same equal stature society, where he has equal democratic rights as a woman, whereby he can do ” whatever” he wants for satisfying his needs then ‘sir, you need to understand and get it straight into your head that, destroying the sanctity of a woman, conducting gruesome crimes, ruining and abusing her, playing and mocking her, is nowhere a constitutional right!’

(“Only those guys and men should be offended by this, who had ever been involved in such immoral acts, for others- just sit back, relax and continue reading.”)

We live in a society, where a girl has to justify her acts.For instance, if she comes late from her work or college someday, then she has to justify the delay. But, if a boy or a man returns late someday, then not a’ brow’ is raised at him.

The most recent case that not only hit hard the students of Banaras Hindu University(BHU) but strongly signaled a message ‘why just Delhi, a girl is not safe in any city of the nation’! BHU students have been strongly protesting for a week now, against the alleged molestation of a student but the administration has been continuously ignorant to the motor-cycle borne men. When the girl who was molested, thought that speaking this to her warden would help her seek justice, was actually taken aback when instead of taking the case to the higher authorities, she questioned her as to why was she returning so late to her hostel?

Till date, the most merciless and hideous crime that took over our country is the ‘Nirbhaya’s Case and Nithari Incident’of Delhi. Though the people behind these acts are not much in number, yet they have known to bring ignominy to our Indian society. Both these cases rocked the whole nation. While the Nithari Incident that happened some 10 Years back displayed how the innocent children were slayed and butchered by demons in human figures to fulfill their desires, the Nirbhaya’s case was no less barbaric. It was at the cost of Nirbhaya’s life that some laws concerning rape and delinquent acts were changed, yet these changes are witnessed only after a great toll has dominated the nation.

Undoubtedly, a woman is the reason that we have men, she is the reason for our existence, she is the bud to every flower. A womenshould no longer remain synonymous of delicacy and feebleness, for this shows their inability to stand tall and walk with their heads held high. It’s high time her prestige is restored to the same pedestal where it belongs.